2003
DECEMBER
NOVEMBER
AUGUST
APRIL
MARCH

2002
APRIL

2001
DECEMBER

JANUARY 20, 2003 [Monday]
Meeting with Rose Riordan, Portland Center Stage Artistic Producer, and Mead Hunter, PCS Literary Manager, about the residency and logistics yesterday. Tricky. Trying to parcel out time and money for workshop: actors, rehearsal space and the composer Randy Tico. Planning on several months of solo research, followed by three or four collaborative workshops with actors of several weeks each, each culminating in showings of the work-in-progress. It's very important to me to go outside the theater building, go to different kinds of venues, especially non-theater venues, and show the work to different segments of the community. Wonder how much of a burden this will be on the organization. This partnership is already much different than working with my own company. When the Biggest Kid On The Block wants to do something, everyone’s watching, there’s no way of being under the radar. Dealing with unions for instance—something I don’t have to worry about in LA with Critical Mass. Interesting possibility for connecting with Portland State University to work with a couple interns who could help with research [wow, really!?] and possibly documenting the project [for the PBS special of course].

Important questions: What is the creative process? How does PCS intersect with this process? I feel like part of my function here—and it’s even written into the grant proposal—is to throw a wrench in the works, create a kind of controlled chaos, do my idiosyncratic, weird thing in the context of this big, rigid organization. I hope there are no casualties.
 
JANUARY 21, 2003 [Tuesday]
First official week of residency. I feel on the verge. In a good way. Spent several blissful hours at the Daily Café in the Pearl. Big windows, big gray light, coffee, space, energy for work. Spent most of the afternoon daydreaming about the project and feeling full of possibility, excitement. I don't want to be pretentious or arrogant about it, but the ideas and the way they intersect feel, at least, meritorious. Is that a word? It feels EPIC to me, about America. A companion piece to "Apollo [Part 1]: Lebensraum" working along the same themes, telling different parts of the story, telling the story from different angles. Some of the same characters, and maybe even events, will appear in both parts.

On another front, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opened at PCS last Friday, and is now running. Glowing [praise the Lord] review from The Oregonian which cited Margo Skinner as the best Martha the reviewer has seen. I sit in awe of the actors who, on opening night were on fire, money players all; everything we'd been working on was present—a mature, layered, sculpted performance. I'm relieved that the response has been so positive, and that people say it's not boring. Should be interesting to be around during the week and see how it goes [I'm never around past opening any more]. The process of putting up this production felt relatively easy, painless, like I was coasting. I never trust that, it makes me uncomfortable, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Perhaps in contrast to developing my own work, it feels like I'm not doing anything. There's something to be said for a play that just works like fucking gangbusters. And brilliant actors.

My Mom left on Sunday—she's my hero, taking full charge of Alexa, my daughter, during the final Virginia Woolf? push. I'm alone now with the baby, for the week, and thank God Victor, the nanny, is here to do the Alexa-wrangling during my work time. I wonder if Alexa even remembers who her mother is anymore. Just some shadowy figure always walking out the door. Next week we'll have time for ourselves again.
 
JANUARY 24, 2003 [Friday]
Exhausted today. Alexa woke at 3 am just as I was going to sleep, and she ended up thrashing around beside me in bed for the rest of the night. I broke down around 7 am and played the Baby Mozart video for her so I could sleep for another hour. Principles fly out the window in the face of sleepless nights.

More Daily Café today, trying to eek out a semblance of an idea. Feeling like a loser. I'm essentially no further along on the project now than I was on Tuesday. I feel like a fraud, a charlatan. What the fuck am I doing? I have no project in mind—I'm just making shit up out of the ether.
 
Victor is a godsend.

JANUARY 27, 2003 [Monday]
Left Portland yesterday. In Reno with my Mom and Dad now because our house in LA is uninhabitable due to rain damage. Michael, my husband, is holding down the fort there, getting everything in shape for our homecoming sometime late this week.  

Had hoped to knock out some sort of cohesive project description of Apollo II before I left PCS, but I'm no closer to knowing what it is, now, than when I started. Don’t know what to focus on, where to start my research—usually I'm pretty good at pinpointing the most useful place to begin. Rose Riordan tried to talk me down by reminding me that I have begun, that I have been working on the piece for a long time. Oh. Right. Well, how to continue? What is the essential idea, core information that will set me and the piece in motion? I probably spent my first month’s grant installment at Powell’s on books for research [sometimes I think my work is just an excuse to buy books]. Starting with the Civil War, about which I am completely ignorant. So Don't Know Much About the Civil War seemed like a good choice [only in my case it should be called Don't Know a Fucking Thing About the Most Significant Event in Our Nation's History].

Will be back in Portland in March for three weeks of residency and hope to dig into the project in a much more muscular way.

JANUARY 28, 2003 [Tuesday]
Bush's State of the Union speech tonight. I am absolutely opposed to him, his cronies, their agenda. Going to war with Iraq after a year-long build-up and charade with the UN. Economy in shambles, environmental protections and civil liberties stripped away at a dizzying pace, our country's standing in the rest of the world sinking daily, we run roughshod over civilization. I'm appalled at our swaggering, our bullying, our arrogance, isolationism, disregard for human needs and the Greater Good, not only of people around the world, but of our own citizenry. There are dark forces at work. Things are not going well. And I am not actively involved in trying to stem the tide; my life is too comfortable, free and easy, in the face of real poverty, suffering, states of emergency. Humility and moderation are in order. Not being very articulate, not really mining the deepest feelings. I am LAZY. [and fat] Inconsequential.
 
Make sure energy is expended in the most meaningful ways. Make the effort count. What is this project? Is it necessary?